It's Only a Paper Moon (song)
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"It's Only a Paper Moon" is a popular song written by Harold Arlen and published in 1933, with lyrics by E. Y. Harburg and Billy Rose.[1] It was written originally for an unsuccessful Broadway play called The Great Magoo, set in Coney Island. It was subsequently used in the movie Take a Chance, in 1933, and Paul Whiteman recorded a successful version, sung by Peggy Healey. But its lasting fame stems from recordings of the song by popular artists during the last years of World War Two, when versions by Ella Fitzgerald and the Nat King Cole Trio became hugely popular. It has endured as a vehicle for improvisation by many jazz musicians.
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[edit] In popular culture
- The song was included in the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire, which opened in 1947.
- Polly Bergen performed the song on her 1957-1958 NBC variety show, The Polly Bergen Show.[2]
- The song lent its title to the 1973 Peter Bogdanovich film Paper Moon.
- The song, with a newly composed counter-melody by Kander and Ebb, is a musical segment in the film Funny Lady, starring Barbra Streisand and James Caan.
- The song was used in a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "It's Only a Paper Moon."
- The recording by Benny Goodman was featured in the film The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (2007).
- The last verse and a Japanese translation is used as an epigraph in Haruki Murakami's 1Q84.
- The song appears twice on Erin Mckeown's 2007 album Sing You Sinners, first in a standard jazz style, the second time as a waltz.
- Ella Fitzgerald's version is featured in the movie, The Break-Up.
- This song can be heard in the HBO series Carnivàle, at the beginning of the first season episode titled "Lonnigan, Texas".
- The song is heard in the CW series Supernatural, during the season 7 episode titled "Time After Time After Time".
- The song is referenced throughout Haruki Murakami's novel "1Q84" and is many ways an expression for the duality of appearance and reality motif that is at the heart of the book.
[edit] Recorded versions
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ It's Only a Paper Moon at jazzstandards.com
- ^ "The Polly Bergen Show". Classic Television Archives. http://ctva.biz/US/MusicVariety/PollyBergenShow.htm. Retrieved January 9, 2011.
[edit] External links
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